- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Canada (Mar 15 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676976298
- ISBN-13: 978-0676976298
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 13.5 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #717,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Set during the Balkan wars in the late 1990s and at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, this intriguing novel is a love story that brings together Daniel, a cynical Canadian journalist on the edge of burnout, and Lili, a conscientious Serbian-Albanian interpreter who grew up in Paris. As with all good love stories, this one concerns the obstacles and barriers, seemingly insurmountable, that the two lovers must overcome. Lili is sworn not to betray the confidences of the court while Daniel, as a journalist hungry for his next story, cannot help but use every means at his disposal to reveal the truth. Helwig has a good feel for the way interpreters and especially journalists work: "With a journalist's unconscious reflexes, he scanned the flat, looking for the personal detail, the first paragraph hook."
The book is also a fascinating study in the mundane nature of evil, represented by Nikola Markovic, on trial for war crimes and a key subject of Daniel's interviews. The blind spots in this Bosnian Serb's psyche are chilling. Also haunting is the subtle comparison of military official and interpreter, both of whom wish to maintain a professional distance from their actions, contrasted with the journalist, who, strangely, must be both engaged and distant at the same time. A tangential pair of characters in London, including a crazed priest obsessed with aliens, adds little to the story, but altogether this is a masterfully constructed novel that keeps the reader ticking along to the turning of the millennium. --Mark Frutkin --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"[Helwig’s] political commitment adds unusual forcefulness to this eloquent combination of war report, courtroom drama and love story. The subject is inevitably grim, but the story is so well structured, the writing so elegant, that it manages to be enjoyable as well as moving, an easy though never light read."
—Sunday Telegraph
"In Between Mountains . . . [Helwig] explores the less well-traveled road of post-war horrors, when nightmares return to haunt those who have witnessed or perpetrated them."
—Books in Canada
"Helwig achieves a rare weave with Between Mountains. … an unexpected pleasure are the sections on translation. Leave it to the author of seven volumes of poetry to describe the act of changing languages so that it seems as dangerous and thrilling as the work of a California firefighter, with twice as many split-second decisions. …"
—Quill & Quire
"The depth of her understanding — both of Balkan particulars and universal human flaws — fills this book with moving scenes and striking perceptions."
—The Globe and Mail
"A profound novel."
—Winnipeg Free Press
"This is a stunning novel from a new voice, a deserving contender for this year’s prize shortlists."
—Ink (UK)
"One of Maggie Helwig’s many accomplishments in this astonishing novel is her ability to render murderers, victims, and helpless bystanders as equally human. Her political intelligence and spiritual generosity make Between Mountains both a profound gesture of remembrance, as well as a deeply moving work of art."
—Michael Redhill, author of Martin Sloane
"Maggie Helwig’s novel puts a human face to the criminal destruction of a place once called Yugoslavia. She reminds us that war ravages the souls of all who find themselves caught in its grasp, including journalists from afar; and of the healing power of love."
—Erna Paris, author of Long Shadows
"When guns and flags stop talking, writers come to heal. Between Mountains is a rare novel about the repercussions of war. From Helwig’s beautiful novel one can learn more about honesty, passion for truth and love than from almost any other book on the tragic conflict in the Balkans."
—Goran Simic, author of Immigrant Blues
"A passionate and poetic love story which never flinches from its task of exploring the way history compromises our lives."
—Ben Richards, author of The Mermaid and the Drunks
Praise for Maggie Helwig:
"[Helwig is a] passionate observer and witness to the world around her."
—Broken Pencil
"An inventive, intelligent, and unorthodox thinker."
—Paragraph
"Helwig knows the precise details that render a scene true."
—Quill & Quire
"Helwig’s strength is to take concrete subjects and generalize about the mystery of what it is to be human."
—Malahat Review
—Sunday Telegraph
"In Between Mountains . . . [Helwig] explores the less well-traveled road of post-war horrors, when nightmares return to haunt those who have witnessed or perpetrated them."
—Books in Canada
"Helwig achieves a rare weave with Between Mountains. … an unexpected pleasure are the sections on translation. Leave it to the author of seven volumes of poetry to describe the act of changing languages so that it seems as dangerous and thrilling as the work of a California firefighter, with twice as many split-second decisions. …"
—Quill & Quire
"The depth of her understanding — both of Balkan particulars and universal human flaws — fills this book with moving scenes and striking perceptions."
—The Globe and Mail
"A profound novel."
—Winnipeg Free Press
"This is a stunning novel from a new voice, a deserving contender for this year’s prize shortlists."
—Ink (UK)
"One of Maggie Helwig’s many accomplishments in this astonishing novel is her ability to render murderers, victims, and helpless bystanders as equally human. Her political intelligence and spiritual generosity make Between Mountains both a profound gesture of remembrance, as well as a deeply moving work of art."
—Michael Redhill, author of Martin Sloane
"Maggie Helwig’s novel puts a human face to the criminal destruction of a place once called Yugoslavia. She reminds us that war ravages the souls of all who find themselves caught in its grasp, including journalists from afar; and of the healing power of love."
—Erna Paris, author of Long Shadows
"When guns and flags stop talking, writers come to heal. Between Mountains is a rare novel about the repercussions of war. From Helwig’s beautiful novel one can learn more about honesty, passion for truth and love than from almost any other book on the tragic conflict in the Balkans."
—Goran Simic, author of Immigrant Blues
"A passionate and poetic love story which never flinches from its task of exploring the way history compromises our lives."
—Ben Richards, author of The Mermaid and the Drunks
Praise for Maggie Helwig:
"[Helwig is a] passionate observer and witness to the world around her."
—Broken Pencil
"An inventive, intelligent, and unorthodox thinker."
—Paragraph
"Helwig knows the precise details that render a scene true."
—Quill & Quire
"Helwig’s strength is to take concrete subjects and generalize about the mystery of what it is to be human."
—Malahat Review
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
the endless effects of war,
By
This review is from: Between Mountains (Paperback)
"Between Mountains" is a harsh and beautiful book; it is sobering, but not, in the end, depressing. The story centers on Daniel, a war correspondent, and Lili, a translator, who are brought together and then kept apart by their roles on the fringe of the Balkan conflict. The strictest integrity and impartiality are demanded by Lili's career as a translator for high-level international negotiations; any sort of friendship with a journalist is out of the question. Yet she and Daniel become closer and closer to each other as they also get closer to a true conflict of interest: Lili will be translating at the war crimes trial of Nikola Markovic, whom Daniel has interviewed extensively. Events spiral out of control, the past reaches out to blight the future, and through Markovic's own unwilling recollections, the reader is drawn into an understanding of the terrible weight of war. Okay, that sounds depressing. And on some level, it is. At the core of the book is this awful paradox: that war and hatred feel like they have their own agency, they feel like inescapable forces that no one creates and no one person could possibly sway -- and yet in the end they are composed of *nothing* but the choices of individuals. The book provokes a lot of thought about what can and can't be accomplished by individuals in that context; given the world we live in, those thoughts aren't especially rosy, but they're not hopeless either. The book holds out some hope for its characters, and for our prospects of finding ways to live without war.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review) 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
the endless effects of war,
By E. Peterson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Between Mountains (Paperback)
"Between Mountains" is a harsh and beautiful book; it is sobering, but not, in the end, depressing. The story centers on Daniel, a war correspondent, and Lili, a translator, who are brought together and then kept apart by their roles on the fringe of the Balkan conflict. The strictest integrity and impartiality are demanded by Lili's career as a translator for high-level international negotiations; any sort of friendship with a journalist is out of the question. Yet she and Daniel become closer and closer to each other as they also get closer to a true conflict of interest: Lili will be translating at the war crimes trial of Nikola Markovic, whom Daniel has interviewed extensively. Events spiral out of control, the past reaches out to blight the future, and through Markovic's own unwilling recollections, the reader is drawn into an understanding of the terrible weight of war. Okay, that sounds depressing. And on some level, it is. At the core of the book is this awful paradox: that war and hatred feel like they have their own agency, they feel like inescapable forces that no one creates and no one person could possibly sway -- and yet in the end they are composed of *nothing* but the choices of individuals. The book provokes a lot of thought about what can and can't be accomplished by individuals in that context; given the world we live in, those thoughts aren't especially rosy, but they're not hopeless either. The book holds out some hope for its characters, and for our prospects of finding ways to live without war. |
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